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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

‘US has spying unit on roof of its Tel Aviv embassy’

The United States maintains hidden rooftop spying units at
several embassies around the world, including Tel Aviv, Israeli intelligence
analyst Ronen Solomon told the Maariv daily Tuesday.

The paper quoted unnamed Israeli security officials saying
this did not surprise them.

Solomon said he had discovered such structures in
photographs of US embassies in Beijing, Dubai, Moscow, Madrid and Tel Aviv.

The report followed a story in Germany’s Der Spiegel on
Sunday claiming that the US embassy in Berlin is a “nest of espionage,” with
spy equipment installed on upper floors and rooftops covered by “screens or Potemkin-like
structures.”

The unnamed Israeli officials were quoted by Maariv saying
that the working assumption in Israeli security is that the US monitors all
calls in the Middle East, just as in Europe, especially if they are not
encrypted.

On Friday, former Mossad chief Danny Yatom told the same
paper that he was “certain” the US “has been listening in on its allies,
including Israel… When the Americans think they need to listen in on someone,
they’ll do just that.”

Yatom explained that there are two issues around which the
Americans are likely spying on Israel — negotiations with Palestinians and the
Iranian nuclear program. “It is important for them to know what Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu really thinks… They have interests here because they want to
be able to contend with Israeli claims that arise when talking about these
issues,” the ex-Mossad chief said.